Broken soldier
by JohnLockSher
Summary: no Mary. No baby. this is kind of after Sherlock is presumed dead after the reinenbach fall. maybe a couple months after it. Sherlock is never tortured when he is looking for moriarties men.
1. Dead or dying

"john... please stay with me. Im so sorry, believe me i am! I never knew that leaving would do this to you. P-please John. For me, don't die. I need you."

John struggled to stay consious. The cuts were deep, he knew. Deep enough for him to have bled out in a few minutes, thats exactly what he had wanted. But, because he didn't bleed out, he knew someone must have found him.

Mrs. Hudson? No the grip this person had was too firm.

Medics? no he would be on a stretcher with tubes sticking in him already.

Lestrade? maybe but not probable.

but he didn't have anyone else... Lestrade is the only one who could possibly be here right now.

 _i haven't talked to Lestrade since... since it all happened. Why would he be here now?_

As time went by, he began to hear things that were happening around him

 _john- please- know- stay with me- please- for me... dont die_ As the realisation of who was speaking began to sink in, his thoughts grew blurry, the voice of his best friend began to sound distant, he felt himself falling through a tunnel of darkness

 _NO WAIT! He's alive! i need him to know that i hear him! Sherlock! Sherlock please im here! i hear you! im not dead!_ Sherlock was in tears, cradling the bloody, battered, and frail form of John Hamish Watson. The greatest man that he ever knew. His first friend. He loved John more than anything else.

Oh, John thinks Sherlock crushed on Irene, no. John was the one Sherlock was in love with. John and only John.

"Sherlock. i-im here" a weak voice choked out.

Sherlock looked down with a shaky smile as tears freely fell down his face and onto the tattered, beige jumper that John wore. it was stained with the blood of a desperately sad man, who just wanted his friend back.

"The medics are on their way, John. You'll be okay. i promise. You hear me?"

"John?!"

"NO!"

Sherlock frantically searched for a pulse but he was shaking so badly that he couldnt even hold his fingers against the neck.

' _Ah. John. Took you long enough.'_

 _John_ _, who was laying on the floor, suddenly sat up, bolt right. He looked down at himself frantically._

 _No blood on his clothes?_

 _No bruises on his body?_

 _He lifted his shirt sleeve slowly,_

 _No... cuts or burns?_

 _John suddenly remembered that someone had spoken earlier. He looked up quickly and saw a man whom he had never thought he would see again... a man he had prayed he would never see again._

 _The man was watching him curiously. When they made eye contact, he smiled slightly._

'well'

John _straightened up, shoulders back, feet together, arms held strictly at his side._

 _But he said nothing._

 _'Hmm. Not quite what i was expecting but ill take it...'_

 _Still John did not reply._

'You're _dying, you know... you did a good job at insuring that you succeeded. Are you satisfied? You left a gruesome mess for your landlady to clean up.'_

John _still said nothing._

 _What could he say to the man who tortured him for two years? Made his life a hell just because he wanted to. The man wasn't even looking for information. The man was just bored... Now, he was supposedly dead or dying and this is the person who greeted him at the end?_

 _'You will speak when i am talking to you!"_

 _John's first thought was of fear. He wanted to flinch back. But he held his ground. Hid his emotions behind a mask that he had perfected over the years._

 _John made a quick decision._

His _posture relaxed and he took on a lazy stance._

'Or _what? im already dead.'_

This _clearly surprised the man._

'How _dare you talk to me like that?!'_

 _'Look i don't have time for this. I need to get back to reality so if you could just shove off, that would be great'_

 _John had no idea where all this bravado was coming from. He looked and sounded as if he didn't have a care in the world. When he was, actually, incredibly terrified._

 _The nightmares of what this man did while he was in the enemy prison never went away. Sherlock, often played the piano to wake him up, of course, Sherlock would never admit to it. But the nightmares grew worse once Sherlock... since it all happened._

'How _dare you?! i will whip you until the skin of your back is hanging off you body and then i will peel it away and laugh as you scream in agony and--'_

 _'You've already done that. You really going to repeat a method of torture? in the two years that I've known you, you've never done that'_

John _smiled to himself at the look on the other mans face._ _The man charged at John and punched him in the stomach_

 ** _'ILL NEVER LET YOU LEAVE! I WILL KEEP YOU DOWN HERE WITH ME FOR THE REST OF-'_**

"John? John wake up!"

John sprinted up, his hand reaching out and grabbing a hand that was laying on his arm quicker than the hand could retreat.

"John! John! its okay. you're okay. you're safe."

"wh- who- no where is he?!"

"John hold on youve been through a shock!"

"dont bloody give me that Lestrade! where is he?! i have to see him!"

John started getting out of the hospital bed and Lestrade desperately tried to hold him back without hurting him.

"Blimey this is harder than i expected" lestrade grunted.


	2. John its me

**previously:**

 _"John hold on, you've been through a shock!"_

 _"Dont bloody give me that, Lestrade! Where is he?! I have to see him!"_ _John started getting out of the hospital bed and Lestrade desperately tried to hold him back without hurting him_

 _"Blimey this is harder than i expected" lestrade grunted_ ,

Lestrade kept one arm firmly wrapped around Johns bicep while his other hand reached to his holster next to his gun grabbing the handcuffs. Lestrade pinned John as hard as he could to the bed without putting pressure on John's lower arms and risk opening up the cuts on his wrist.

"Sorry, Mate" Greg mumbled before efficiently slipping one cuff around Johns wrist and the other one around the hospitals bed rail.

John stiffened at once. He looked down at the cuffs then over at Lestrade,

"take these off, Detective" John demanded, snidely. He was beyond pissed.

"John, you need to calm down. You are injured, you've lost a lot of blood and we just... we can't risk you hurting yourself again..." Gregory stated sadly.

John's anger diminished instantly and was replaced with shame, he looked down, no longer able to hold eye contact.

"please i... i just- is he okay?"

Lestrade looked up at John, shocked that the anger was absent from his voice. When Lestrade looked into John's eyes, he knew that john wasn't angry anymore, but instead, he looked incredibly tired, not just physically, but mentally too. When Greg looked at John- when he really looked at him- he could see the devastated, broken man that had tried to cope with losing his best friend, by killing himself...

When Greg Lestrade truly looked at John, he could see every emotion and conflict that the man was going through. Sherlock had always said that John's eyes betrayed Johns body language when he tried to lie. If John was angry, his eyes were hard and fiery. If he was sad, but wanted to hide it, his eyes were innocent and childlike. Or when Sherlock said something that upset or freaked John out, his eyes would reflect it no matter how hard he tried to cover it up.

Lestrade knew this too. Anytime Sherlock, unknowingly, insulted a victim of a case they were working on, John's eyes would show how he felt about that even if he didn't voice it. Or, on the numerous occasions when they encountered an armed and dangerous criminal, John's body language always portrayed bravery, fearlessness, confidence. But his eyes, if you looked close enough, showed the fear and doubt that any man felt when you are put into a situation, where you could lose your life, would feel. Or those times when John was forced to take a life to save others. To John, regardless of whether the man he killed was a criminal or not, it still affected him. His eyes would be hard, shut off, and distant.

And now, here they were: John handcuffed to a hospital bed after slitting his wrists due to the suffocating grief of losing his bestfriend to what everyone had thought was suicide.

What scared Greg the most though, was when he locked eyes with John, for a brief moment, he saw the look of a dead man. John's eyes were hard, distant, and unreadable. He was so far gone that even his eyes, the windows to his true feelings, were empty: curtained off from the world.

This wasn't the John Watson that the Detective Inspector remembered all those months ago.

' _yeah because you haven't been to see him since the incident at the hospital_ ' Greg's mind taunted.

"John, i-"

"if- if you try... if you try to lie to me, try to tell me that i didn't see him... if i didn't see the most important man in the world, the most awful, brilliant, and biggest arse, in the world... the one i thought killed himself... ill kill you" John stated. There was no heat or venom in his words, but that didn't make it any less of a threat and Greg knew that.

Greg knew John well enough to know that when John was very serious, or very angry, his voice would drop, his voice would fall to a volune of emptiness, that matches the look in John's eyes, and that was when you should truly be afraid of John Hamish Watson: former army doctor, serving as Captain of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers under her Majesties The Queen.

Greg stayed quiet. He didn't know how to tell John the truth: Sherlock was dead. He didn't want to have to be the one to explain to John _again_ that Sherlock truly was dead and that there were no tricks. It wasn't fair. So, he settled for running a hand through his hair in frustration, and then sitting down in the uncomfortable hospital chair closest to the bed. John sat back down on the bed, with the chain of the handcuff being the only noise in the room for several minutes.

John feared the answer that Greg would give him. He didn't want to hear that Sherlock Holmes really was dead. He didn't want to hear that, as he had layed bleeding out on the floor of his bathroom, that his mind brought the one person he wanted to see before he died. He didn't want to believe that Sherlock had found him in the bathroom begging him to stay alive, telling John how _sorry_ he was for leaving... he couldn't handle hearing that that was a hallucination.

John couldn't bear to think about that possibility. No, Sherlock was alive and there was an explanation for why he faked his suicide. Maybe Sherlock had no choice but to do it. Maybe he was saving the world again.

When John finds Sherlock, he would punch him in the nose, then grab him and hug him. John would tell Sherlock just how much he meant to him, how much he loves him and all his idiosyncracies. He would hug Sherlock as if his life depended on it, because it did because, without Sherlock, John had nothing to live for; no one to fight for; and no one to fight _with_.

And they would go back to Baker Street and see clients and chase down criminals in the back alleys of London. John would marvel at Sherlock everytime he spouted off deductions about the victims or the crime scene. And John would kill any man who ever tried to take Sherlock away from him again. And, at the end of every case, they would sit down in their chairs watching crap tele with a cup of tea and he would listen to Sherlock spout insults at the TV about the inaccuracies of the show.

 _then it'll be like this was all a bad dream_

And this is what John believes because he has to... he _has to_... because if it turns out that Sherlock really is dead still... his mind couldn't handle losing him all over again.

He wouldn't survive it.

"John... He-i... he really is de-"

"Don't finish that sentence when you don't have all the facts, Greg, a voice said from behind the two men.

John froze not looking back yet.

But, Greg was already facing the door and he, too, froze with his eyes glued to the door behind John.

"No... it can't be- oh you bloody bastard" Greg gasped befire lunging for the man at the door and giving him a fierce hug. Greg teared up when he wrapped his arms around the man who he had come to see as a son. The man he thought was dead.

"you have a hellava lot of explaining to do! but um... you have something more important to do right now" Greg stated glancing behind him.

"yes i do. I will see you later, Lestrade."

"yes yes... just... dont disappear again."

And, with that, Greg left the room even though he wanted to talk to Sherlock, but he knew John needed him more.

It was silent for a few moments in the room. John had still not turned around to face the man at the door. And Sherlock stayed where he was deciding it was better to allow John to have control of the situation.

"John... its me"

John didn't react but Sherlock thought he saw his shoulders shake slightly, making the detective wonder if John had started to cry.

The silence stretched on and Sherlock was just about to say something else when John sat up straighter and seemed to be preparing something to say. Sherlock held his breath


End file.
